A Minimalist Design Approach to Antimicrobial Agents Based on a Thionin Template

摘要

Numerous studies have been devoted to the stabilization of secondary structure elements to improve receptor-ligand recognition.We report a novel application of this principle to create new antimicrobial agents using the highly folded thionin from Pyrularia pubera as a template.Non-native disulfide bonds have been used to induce two short linear segments of the protein into an amphipathic helix.The resulting 13- and 9-residue peptides are significantly more active than their linear counterparts and have an activity similar to that of native thionin.